Emirati ambassador Hassan Ahmed al-Shahi arrived in Syria on Monday evening to become the first ambassador of his country to Syria since 2011.

According to the Syrian newspaper al-Watan, al-Shahi will head the Emirati diplomatic mission after nearly 13 years without an ambassador from the Gulf state there since the start of the war on Syria.

The Charge d'Affaires, Counselor Abdul Hakim al-Nuaimi, had been handling the diplomacy between the two countries since the reopening of the embassy in Damascus.

Al-Shahi served as the ambassador of the United Arab Emirates in Iraq since 2015, and before that, he was the ambassador to his country in Sudan. In December 2018, the UAE reopened its embassy in Damascus after 7 years of severed ties between the two countries.

Relations have long been strained between Damascus and Abu Dhabi as the latter recalled its ambassador from Syria in the wake of the war waged on it in 2011. However, a rapprochement saw relations improving between the two.

In early June 2023, it was reported that US legislators are mulling tightening sanctions on Syria in a bid to undermine the efforts it has so far made as part of the reconciliation process underway with numerous Arab states, which most recently culminated in the country returning to the Arab League after more than a decade of being outside of it.

This came in the wake of an exchange of visits between the two parties, wherein UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan visited Syria in early February, and met with Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad in the first visit by a prominent foreign official in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake that afflicted both Syria and Turkey.

A month later, al-Assad arrived in the UAE for an official visit, and met with his Emirati counterpart Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan.